Hachette Books, one of the nation's leading publishers, has announced that effective next Thursday it will make its entire digital catalog of more than 5,000 e-books available for our patrons, as well as those of thouands of other libraries.

The bookw will be available for patrons to borrow through our OverDrive service, which can be accessed at our website.

Hachette publishes books by authors such as James Patterson, David Baldacci, David Sedaris, Kate Atkinson, Sandra Brown and Sara Zarr.

This is a big breakthrough for folks who want to read books with devices such as the Kindle or the Nook. Hachette has been one of the major holdouts on letting us buy their books so we can lend them to our patrons.

The argument they have put forward is a good one, and I sympathize with them. They fear the demise of printed versions of their books if demand skyrockets for digital formats.